


Camp

by distira



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 07:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/619470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distira/pseuds/distira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jess, after college.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Camp

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fictorium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/gifts).



> so i was your original yuletide author and had to default, but i've finally finished this and i hope you like it!

"Jess, it's not that easy, I can't just hire you with no experience." 

Coach Taylor sounds exactly the same on the phone as he does in person. Jess thinks she sounds different on the phone. More professional. 

"I was your equipment manager, coach," she tries. "You know I know the game." 

"It's a different situation," Coach Taylor tells her. She can tell he's starting to get to the end of his patience. She bets his forehead wrinkles are showing. "You can't walk on to a college coaching staff, Jess, you have to go through an application process, and that application process will reveal that you have no applicable experience."

"Well, that's why I'm calling you," Jess explains. "Coach, you know I'm good. And you know this is what I love, okay, this is my dream. And if I have to go to Pennsylvania to get it because you're the only one who will hire me, then I will come to Pennsylvania." 

"Hang on one second now, I haven't said anything about hiring you," Coach Taylor groans. 

"Not yet," Jess tells him. 

"We'll see," he says, and Jess smiles. 

 

"Philadelphia?" Vince says. "That's. That's far away, Jess." 

"Yeah, but it's a job, it's football," Jess says. "You knew I was never gonna be your cheerleader for real." 

Vince pouts, slides his thumbs through her belt loops. "But you'd look awful cute in those uniforms."

Jess laughs. "Cuter in a coaching polo and you know it." 

 

Technically the contract Coach Taylor had sent was just for the camp, but Jess convinces her dad to help her get an apartment in Philadelphia anyway. "It's an investment," she tells him. "I'm gonna make this work." 

The apartment is small – she's got a pull out couch and her kitchen is more like a kitchenette, but it's still a place of her own. She texts pictures of it to Vince, who for once takes the tactful route and congratulates her instead of telling her how good she could've had it if she'd stuck around for his fifth year. She's stick of that argument. ("Just because you redshirted doesn't mean I have to", she tells him over and over again.) 

She makes mac and cheese from the box and watches a replay of the 2009 title game on her laptop. She scribbles down a few offensive notes and sets her alarm for 5 A.M. 

 

Camp is hot. Jess had kind of thought that Philadelphia would be cooler than Texas, and it is, but July is July, and it's hot. And humid. Jess looks over at Coach Taylor from where she's filling water bottles and thinks, not for the first time, that she needs to get herself a pair of coaching sunglasses. 

"Try running him," she tells Coach Taylor, jogging over to where he's standing with the rest of his coaching staff. 

"Huh?" 

"Your QB-"

"His name's Tyler," Coach Taylor says, crossing his arms. 

"Sure, okay, Tyler – he's not reading it right, try having him run, his passes are getting picked off every time," Jess offers. 

"I thought you were filling water bottles," Coach Taylor frowns. 

"I did, they're all full," Jess says, pointing. "I just thought-" 

"It would be a good thought if this was a game," Coach Taylor says. "But this is camp, this is when he's got to learn to make the read, and if he can't learn it in practice he'll never learn it, so he's gonna keep passing the damn ball until he gets it right." 

"Okay," Jess says, putting her hands up. "I just thought, you know, I might get to do a little more coaching and a little less being the equipment manager?" 

"It's just the first day, Jess," Coach Taylor says, and Jess knows that their conversation is over. 

 

Jess fills more water bottles on the second day. And on the third day. On the fourth day, she stays late, picking up cups and cleaning up the bench. She sits on it, imagines the team taking the field for a scrimmage. Pictures herself with a headset, making play calls. 

"Coach," Jess calls as soon as she gets inside the athletic offices building. "Coach, can I talk to you for a second?"

Coach Taylor's door is open. He grunts, so she walks into the office. It's big – has a flatscreen TV for watching film, a couch for the players to sit on during meetings. Two desks, one with a bigger computer for breaking down film, and one that he's sitting at, poring over what looks like a printout of the preliminary roster. 

"Sit down," he says, so Jess sits on the arm of the couch, twisting to face him. "Yes?" 

"So," she says, and thinks about how she wants to talk to him. She remembers how she always has, back in Dillon, and knows that's how she's been acting this whole time. "Coach, filling up water bottles is real fun and all, but that's not what you're paying me to do." 

Coach Taylor blinks at her. "It isn't, is it," he says, sounding vaguely surprised. 

"Nope," she tells him. "Look, Coach, I know you're going out on a limb with me right now and I completely appreciate it, okay, but I'm going out on a limb too and I need you to help me out here. I want a job with this team in the fall, and you said I needed experience, but how can I get any experience if all you let me do is fill up the water bottles every day?" 

Coach Taylor presses his fingertips together and leans his forehead against his hands. "I suppose that's true," he says. 

"So…"

"I'll tell you what," Coach Taylor says. "You take this-" He hands her a DVD "and you give me all the holes in that defense tomorrow morning." It's a tape from practice that afternoon – the date is scrawled on the case. Jess already has the list for him, ready to go off the top of her head, but she just smiles. 

"Okay, Coach. Thank you, Coach." 

"Leave the door open behind you," he tells her, and she does. 

 

"You know how hard it's gonna be?" Vince asks her. 

"What?" 

"There aren't girl coaches, baby," he says. Jess holds the phone away from her face and stares at it in disbelief for a minute. 

"Excuse me? Boy, you know you wouldn't be in college if it wasn't for me," she snaps. 

"That's not- Jess, that's now how I meant it, come on," Vince says. 

"I went over your wildcat plays with you last week, where were you then?" Jess says, building steam. "You, you check your attitude and learn your playbook all on your own, and then you call me back, okay? I have khakis to buy." 

 

She goes to a Macy's downtown. She buys two pairs of khaki shorts and two pairs of pants, and when she goes to pay for them, the woman working the register tells her that she's too young and pretty to be hiding behind khakis. 

 

"Here's your list, Coach," Jess says in the morning, holding out a few sheets of legal papers. Coach Taylor doesn't take them. 

"Go prep your offense," he tells her, and Jess waits until he turns his back to jump up and down in excitement. 

 

Camp ends as hot as it began. 

"I can't offer you a job," Coach Taylor tells her. 

Jess blinks back tears. 

"I can, however, offer you a GA position." 

"What's- What's that?" 

"Graduate assistantship," Coach Taylor tells her. "You'll get grad school paid for by the department, you'll be listed on the coaching staff, and you'll get some really good experience. Marketable experience." He tosses her a shirt.

"What's this?" Jess asks, unfolding it. 

"Coaching polo," he tells her. "You better get yourself a pair of sunglasses before August rolls around, too." 

Jess smiles, and for the first time she can remember, Coach Taylor smiles back.


End file.
